Econ 260B Paper Questions
NB: Topics are tentative until a “due date” is assigned. Updated: May 5, 2007
1. Pick a country, any country. Discuss, support or refute the following hypothesis: environmental protection is significant to the economy. Present data to support your arguments. [due April 6]
2. In the literature on the voluntary provision of public goods, there is some experimental evidence that people contribute more than simple theory suggests they should. What is that evidence and what reasons that have been offered to explain the differences? Why is this relevant to environmental economics? [due April 18]
3. Contrast willingness-to-pay and willingness-to-accept. Are they different; if so, what is the evidence and what are the arguments as to why is there a difference? What are the implications for environmental policy? [due April 23]
4. Consider a voluntary contributions to public goods as a means of measuring revealed preference for a public good. Review the literature in this domain and propose a method for measuring demand. For instance, could we learn the value of the Douglas Family Preserve to individuals if we know the values of contributions everyone has made? Be specific and focus on implementation. Also be critical. [due April 30]
5. Suppose we have an economy with all consumers exhibiting hyperbolic rates of time preference. What can we conclude about the equilibrium interest rate? [due Friday, May 4]
6. Under what circumstances would we expect a profit-maximizing firm to reduce its emissions absent a regulatory requirement to do so? What is the theoretical and empirical evidence to support your findings? [due May 14].
7. Consider the problem of midnight dumping of chemical wastes – unsafe disposal is unobserved but safe disposal is observable. Furthermore, the sale of chemical feedstocks which ultimately become wastes is observable. Construct a simple model involving a unit tax/subsidy on feedstocks and a unit tax/subsidy on safe disposal. Introduce any other necessary components and derive the optimal solution to this moral hazard problem (perhaps second best), using these instruments. Do not forget to connect your model to the literature. [due May 16]
8. What is the theoretical consensus and empirical support for the effect of different regulatory structures (eg, command and control, emission fees, etc) on innovation? [due May 23]
9.
Consider the fact that we have many
communities around the